![]() ![]() ![]() For example, despite what people will say, the U.S. However, once again, I don’t think the question of industry profits is particularly useful for examining the origins of these wars, or for looking at future conflicts. So to today, I completely understand why many members of the audience turn to War is a Racket after looking at 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, they just allowed appeasers and mistaken isolationists to smear critics of Hitler as profit seeking warmongers. The question was, how far is too far? Was it the Sudetenland? Reunification with Austria? The creation of the Luftwaffe? The limit ended up being the invasion of Poland, but what I’m getting at is that very little of what War is a Racket was discussing was particularly useful to solving these questions. The question facing policy makers in the 1930s was what should the former allies do in the face of a rising Nazi Germany that was aggressively throwing off the shackles of Versailles. Yes, industries made money off of WWI, but that wasn’t why the war occurred, and the fact that industries make profits isn’t a case for or against military action. I’m not accusing Butler of anything, but his framework fueled dangerous isolationist thinking during the 1930s that directly aided the disastrous appeasement of Hitler. That being said, I don’t particularly believe Smedly Butler/MIC frameworks are particularly useful for examining military intervention, and actually prevent people from thinking clearly. It’s perfectly legitimate for people to pursue corruption concerns. I overstated when I said concerns about contractors/industry should be dismissed. Marshall responded with (lightly edited for clarity): It doesn't have to be the controlling factor, but ignoring it is ignorant imo. Marshall disagrees, and said so during the episode with Bridge, which solicited this response on YouTube from a user named Austin:Ĭan you give a cogent, steel-manned argument as to why Smedler Butler's and Dwight Eisenhower's concerns over the MIC ought to be ignored / glossed over? If you're seriously entertaining the issues those two are raising, I don't know how the issue can be ignored in any conversation about military intervention. In the wake of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, many people have reasonably looked at the trillions of dollars spent over the last 20 years and invoked Butler’s framework in explaining the war. During the 1930s, Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket, a short pamphlet that sought to catalog the supposed role financial interests played in bringing America into World War One. Anyone who reads the YouTube comments on your episodes and listened to our episode with Elbridge Colby knows that Marshall has serious beef with audience members invoking General Smedley Butler’s thoughts on the role of the military-industrial-complex (MIC) and banks when it comes to war.
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